8 ms·

Why Roam Is Cool

38 points by jeffmorrisjr 7y ago

vondur 7y ago
So, it's a like a wiki? It reminds me of the note taking app in Gnome, Tomboy. Didn't have the cool lines linking things though.
- brunoqc 7y ago
  yeah kinda. I saw in a post that something similar is possible with a wiki and an add-on or something like that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22788795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22788795
- slightwinder 7y ago
  Basically yes, but it's a new development'drive with modern technologies. Wikis were big in the 200x years, and since then development slowed down significantly since all relevant features were explored and the most well working ones surved. Now the ones which were to early for the time seems to appear here and there, and development starts again all over the areas. Quite good I would say.
brunoqc 7y ago
We need to pay to read this article? "This is a free preview of a premium members-only post."
- nbashaw 7y ago
  Author here! The Roam part is free. This is an edition of a newsletter that has three short things - the Roam part is first and here in full.
  - brunoqc 7y ago
    thanks!
rollinDyno 7y ago
This blog post says nothing about why Roam is actually cool. It seems like a waste of opportunity, given that it has reached the front page and it's not really telling anyone why they should use it. I have seen people praise Roam because of different features. Some say the ability to link concepts bidirectionally allows them to create the wiki they always wish they had, only now they can look at every single context where a topic has been mentioned. Others love the ability to use logic constructs to query chunks of text depending on their tags and content. For me personally, it's the ability to reference any fragment of the text so that it lives in multiple places at the same time. Hence, I can reuse ideas in different contexts. Alternatively, if I'm looking at a specific idea, I can tell where it's being drawn upon. I have been using Roam every day for the last 2 months, and it has completely changed my note-taking habits. I have always strived to digitize all my thoughts, but for me, it never felt like I was fully engaged with my note-taking, Roam changed that. Because the main view is a daily page, it invites you to pour everything right there, relieving you of the duty of having to think if something's well placed under a hierarchy of folders. If you link your thoughts, then your thoughts will not get lost. A cult is a cult when the members can't shut up about the cult and Roam is making a lot of noise right now.
- nbashaw 7y ago
  Author here! I didn’t mean to write a comprehensive overview of Roam, I was just curious about the marketing decisions of products that attain cult status. I get that this is not nearly the most important aspect of Roam. Just a little thing I was personally interested in!
- thelastbender12 7y ago
  > it's the ability to reference any fragment of the text so that it lives in multiple places at the same time. I've seen Roam being mentioned as a graph database for notes before but your comment helps me see it! Would this be a good working model - each `note` entry is logged to a central table in something like a relational database and each `page` is a materialised view over that relation. In contrast, for most of the other note taking apps, the abstraction for a note seems closer to a file. Would be fun to implement something that works locally with an embeddable graph database library.
meagher 7y ago
The thing I really like about Roam is there is a new daily note created automatically every day. It’s simple, but lessens friction and I can jot anything down without having to think about organization.
- nbashaw 7y ago
  I love that too. It’s interesting that more notes apps don’t do this. Defaulting to the creation screen makes so much sense!
- themodelplumber 7y ago
  That's cool to hear. My own system works this way, but over time I updated it so it creates a new note / journal file [0] about 24 hours in advance. Sometimes I have just the right amount of energy to start frameworking my next day ahead of time. I am also refining the "look back in time" feature to a global keyboard shortcut, to make it easier to flip through past journal entries, for example "open all the entries from last week," etc. 0. https://pastebin.com/nFpRzUbe https://pastebin.com/nFpRzUbe in case it's helpful to anyone.
yewenjie 7y ago
As an alternative Emacs org-mode based bidirectional linking enabled note-taking workflow, check out org-roam [1]. 1: https://github.com/jethrokuan/org-roam https://github.com/jethrokuan/org-roam
- themodelplumber 7y ago
  OK, this is good, we have moved from "proprietary only" to "free, but Emacs"...stay cool everybody, just another jump or two and the rest of us will be able to sink our teeth into this ;-)
  - _emacsomancer_ 7y ago
    "free, but Emacs" is pretty much an endpoint...
  - nine_k 7y ago
    "Free but Emacs" means a number of things. - It's open, text-based, and thus data are portable, or at least easily readable, elsewhere. - It's free, unencumbered by patents, so it can be re-implemented elsewhere. - I personally can start using it immediately, and it will integrate into my workflow.
  - yewenjie 7y ago
    Haha, it is more like 'free and Emacs' to some of us.
huanwin 7y ago
I really like the referencing and transclusion features of Roam. Being able to reference any fragment of text anywhere else, and edit them them in-place with all changes propagated to every other reference... it's the defining feature that I'm willing to pay for once it monetizes.
tarleb 7y ago
Fully free and open source note-taking app with a similar focus: https://zettlr.com https://zettlr.com
- gexla 7y ago
  Is this spam? You created an account just to post this link? Did you read the article? I looked through the features and this appears to be the same dime-a-dozen-me-too app which doesn't have the one feature everyone loves about Roam. Cheers to the person who built this. I don't want to crap on anyone's work. But this isn't at all like Roam from what I can see.
  - tarleb 7y ago
    Indeed, this shouldn't have been a top comment. It is more a reply to the `org-roam`. Also no, I'm not involved in the development of that app, I just happen to like it. BTW, if your intention is not to crap on anyone's work, maybe don't call something a dime-a-dozen app?
qot 7y ago
Note: the article is a premium members-only post preview and cuts off just after getting into a competitor's valuation. You can't read the whole thing and I regret starting to read it, only to be left mid-thought.
gexla 7y ago
This is yet another example of a case where no matter how many people are working on a problem or have worked on it, that there's still room for improvements which create an explosion of a positive response. I can't believe that nobody has thought to build an application with bio-directional block linking like this. Every app I have used with links can link to a page. Fewer apps can link to a specific page. None of these give you much "at a glance" insight about what the thing is linking to without clicking the link. I have thought about this and I have tried to build it, but I haven't had the time. Clearly time isn't an issue for the note building world though. Not taking apps are a dime a dozen. That's not to say that my app would have been Roam. I just wanted the functionality Roam brings to the table. I know I'm not alone from all the praise Roam gets. I'm just glad I didn't have to build the thing.
- slightwinder 7y ago
  > I can't believe that nobody has thought to build an application with bio-directional block linking like this. bi-directional linking is not new. It's a known idea with some implementation in wikis and other software. But it usually comes with certain problems, so implementation is hard and performance sucks. Maybe those problems are today less visable with better hardware and more battle-tested software. > Every app I have used with links can link to a page. Fewer apps can link to a specific page. What do you mean with specific page? A block/paragraph on the page?

38 points by jeffmorrisjr 7y ago

So, it's a like a wiki? It reminds me of the note taking app in Gnome, Tomboy. Didn't have the cool lines linking things though.

brunoqc 7y ago
yeah kinda. I saw in a post that something similar is possible with a wiki and an add-on or something like that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22788795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22788795
slightwinder 7y ago
Basically yes, but it's a new development'drive with modern technologies. Wikis were big in the 200x years, and since then development slowed down significantly since all relevant features were explored and the most well working ones surved. Now the ones which were to early for the time seems to appear here and there, and development starts again all over the areas. Quite good I would say.

brunoqc 7y ago

We need to pay to read this article? "This is a free preview of a premium members-only post."

nbashaw 7y ago
Author here! The Roam part is free. This is an edition of a newsletter that has three short things - the Roam part is first and here in full.
- brunoqc 7y ago
  thanks!

rollinDyno 7y ago

This blog post says nothing about why Roam is actually cool. It seems like a waste of opportunity, given that it has reached the front page and it's not really telling anyone why they should use it. I have seen people praise Roam because of different features. Some say the ability to link concepts bidirectionally allows them to create the wiki they always wish they had, only now they can look at every single context where a topic has been mentioned. Others love the ability to use logic constructs to query chunks of text depending on their tags and content. For me personally, it's the ability to reference any fragment of the text so that it lives in multiple places at the same time. Hence, I can reuse ideas in different contexts. Alternatively, if I'm looking at a specific idea, I can tell where it's being drawn upon. I have been using Roam every day for the last 2 months, and it has completely changed my note-taking habits. I have always strived to digitize all my thoughts, but for me, it never felt like I was fully engaged with my note-taking, Roam changed that. Because the main view is a daily page, it invites you to pour everything right there, relieving you of the duty of having to think if something's well placed under a hierarchy of folders. If you link your thoughts, then your thoughts will not get lost. A cult is a cult when the members can't shut up about the cult and Roam is making a lot of noise right now.

nbashaw 7y ago
Author here! I didn’t mean to write a comprehensive overview of Roam, I was just curious about the marketing decisions of products that attain cult status. I get that this is not nearly the most important aspect of Roam. Just a little thing I was personally interested in!
thelastbender12 7y ago
> it's the ability to reference any fragment of the text so that it lives in multiple places at the same time. I've seen Roam being mentioned as a graph database for notes before but your comment helps me see it! Would this be a good working model - each `note` entry is logged to a central table in something like a relational database and each `page` is a materialised view over that relation. In contrast, for most of the other note taking apps, the abstraction for a note seems closer to a file. Would be fun to implement something that works locally with an embeddable graph database library.

meagher 7y ago

The thing I really like about Roam is there is a new daily note created automatically every day. It’s simple, but lessens friction and I can jot anything down without having to think about organization.

nbashaw 7y ago
I love that too. It’s interesting that more notes apps don’t do this. Defaulting to the creation screen makes so much sense!
themodelplumber 7y ago
That's cool to hear. My own system works this way, but over time I updated it so it creates a new note / journal file [0] about 24 hours in advance. Sometimes I have just the right amount of energy to start frameworking my next day ahead of time. I am also refining the "look back in time" feature to a global keyboard shortcut, to make it easier to flip through past journal entries, for example "open all the entries from last week," etc. 0. https://pastebin.com/nFpRzUbe https://pastebin.com/nFpRzUbe in case it's helpful to anyone.

yewenjie 7y ago

As an alternative Emacs org-mode based bidirectional linking enabled note-taking workflow, check out org-roam [1]. 1: https://github.com/jethrokuan/org-roam https://github.com/jethrokuan/org-roam

themodelplumber 7y ago
OK, this is good, we have moved from "proprietary only" to "free, but Emacs"...stay cool everybody, just another jump or two and the rest of us will be able to sink our teeth into this ;-)
- _emacsomancer_ 7y ago
  "free, but Emacs" is pretty much an endpoint...
- nine_k 7y ago
  "Free but Emacs" means a number of things. - It's open, text-based, and thus data are portable, or at least easily readable, elsewhere. - It's free, unencumbered by patents, so it can be re-implemented elsewhere. - I personally can start using it immediately, and it will integrate into my workflow.
- yewenjie 7y ago
  Haha, it is more like 'free and Emacs' to some of us.

huanwin 7y ago

I really like the referencing and transclusion features of Roam. Being able to reference any fragment of text anywhere else, and edit them them in-place with all changes propagated to every other reference... it's the defining feature that I'm willing to pay for once it monetizes.

tarleb 7y ago

Fully free and open source note-taking app with a similar focus: https://zettlr.com https://zettlr.com

gexla 7y ago
Is this spam? You created an account just to post this link? Did you read the article? I looked through the features and this appears to be the same dime-a-dozen-me-too app which doesn't have the one feature everyone loves about Roam. Cheers to the person who built this. I don't want to crap on anyone's work. But this isn't at all like Roam from what I can see.
- tarleb 7y ago
  Indeed, this shouldn't have been a top comment. It is more a reply to the `org-roam`. Also no, I'm not involved in the development of that app, I just happen to like it. BTW, if your intention is not to crap on anyone's work, maybe don't call something a dime-a-dozen app?

qot 7y ago

Note: the article is a premium members-only post preview and cuts off just after getting into a competitor's valuation. You can't read the whole thing and I regret starting to read it, only to be left mid-thought.

gexla 7y ago

This is yet another example of a case where no matter how many people are working on a problem or have worked on it, that there's still room for improvements which create an explosion of a positive response. I can't believe that nobody has thought to build an application with bio-directional block linking like this. Every app I have used with links can link to a page. Fewer apps can link to a specific page. None of these give you much "at a glance" insight about what the thing is linking to without clicking the link. I have thought about this and I have tried to build it, but I haven't had the time. Clearly time isn't an issue for the note building world though. Not taking apps are a dime a dozen. That's not to say that my app would have been Roam. I just wanted the functionality Roam brings to the table. I know I'm not alone from all the praise Roam gets. I'm just glad I didn't have to build the thing.

slightwinder 7y ago
> I can't believe that nobody has thought to build an application with bio-directional block linking like this. bi-directional linking is not new. It's a known idea with some implementation in wikis and other software. But it usually comes with certain problems, so implementation is hard and performance sucks. Maybe those problems are today less visable with better hardware and more battle-tested software. > Every app I have used with links can link to a page. Fewer apps can link to a specific page. What do you mean with specific page? A block/paragraph on the page?